the feelings you've brought me to experience
by sanumarox123
Summary: 'Loving Kate Beckett, however, is soft and sweet and shy like the way she says your voice when she says hello to you. It's like falling asleep on rainy mornings and there's a mug of hot chocolate waiting for you when you wake up a few hours later. The love you feel for Kate is like that hot chocolate: the beautiful thing throughout all the pains of real life.'


**This poem means a lot to me. In the span of a few months, I sort of fell in love for the first time, and it's** _ **special**_ **. That's why I wanted to use it to write this.**

 **It's AU.**

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 **Disclaimer: I don't own the poem nor do I own Castle.**

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 _It's hard to focus on anything anymore,_

 _(not that I'm complaining)_

 _Because somehow,_

 _It all traces back to you._

 _And after all this time,_

 _No matter if we're currently talking or not,_

 _My stomach holds thousands of butterflies,_

 _Trapped, still fluttering like there's no tomorrow._

 _Nothing compares to the way my chest feels._

 _It's like there's an ache,_

 _But it's pleasant,_

 _Sort of as if it could burst_

 _Out of my chest_

 _At any given moment._

 _The feelings you've brought me to experience_

 _Are magical, even indescribable_

 _Most of the time;_

 _I wouldn't trade them for anything._

 _-HQY_

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The first time you met her is when she walks in on you meeting with your science teacher, a question about chemistry on the tip of her tongue that fizzles away when she sees you. She blushes, all the way to the tips of her ears and her nose, before stammering an apology and backing away, closing the door behind her. You don't notice that you're still staring at the closed door until your teacher, who is fresh out of college and only a few years older and is really attractive, as your best friend had said before, points it out. Then she tells you that you're blushing as well. But you shake it off. You can't be attracted to _that_ girl when there's this beautiful woman in front of you.

The second time you meet her is when she asks for a tutor in Spanish. You sit down at the chair opposite her in the library and she blushes again, looking down at her textbook and fumbling over the words as she tries to greet you. You chuckle, before you lean over and end up holding her hand before you even know what you're doing or what you wanted to do in the first place. Rick Rodgers, she repeats, after you say your name, and it's at that point that you decided you like the way her voice says your name. She says it like it's one of the most interesting names in the world, even though you know for a fact it isn't.

She tells you her name is Kate, and you mull over the name in your head, playing around with it, rolling it over your tongue when you're alone and liking the way it sounds. _Kate,_ you think sometimes while doing your homework in your room. _Kate Beckett._

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She is a sophomore and you are a senior, and you can't help but think that maybe you shouldn't be so attracted to someone who is two years younger than you, especially with how age is everything when you're your age. But then you manage to convince yourself that you can blame it on her for being so stupidly _pretty_.

It takes you till almost January to convince her to get dinner with you. At that point, she doesn't need the help in Spanish anymore, but you still slide into the seat across from her every Tuesday and the two of you just sit and enjoy each other's company. At the end of each hour, she sends a brilliant smile towards you and you feel your heart expand and your chest puff out, because you know for a fact no one but her friend Maddie gets that smile (in the school, at least).

(That thought shouldn't make you jealous. At all.)

* * *

After you graduate, you decide to help out at the summer school at your high school (you have no idea why you volunteered for it, but your mom is out all the time now and your best friend is there too, so you said why the hell not), and you are surprised when she walks into the classroom. She is just as surprised as you are, flushing all the way up to the tips of her ears and her nose again, and bites her lip shyly, and you tell yourself that she is happy to see you. On your breaks, the two of you silently sit down at the library table, and really get to know each other.

About halfway through the two weeks, you realize that you are in love with her. She is not the first person you have loved, that goes to Kyra from freshman year, a loud and always in charge kind of girl who changed him, but he's not sure if it was for the better. Loving Kate Beckett, however, is soft and sweet and shy like the way she says your voice when she says hello to you. It's like falling asleep on rainy mornings and there's a mug of hot chocolate waiting for you when you wake up a few hours later. The love you feel for Kate is like that hot chocolate: the beautiful thing throughout all the pains of real life.

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When there's only a month left before you have to go to college, you take her out for lunch in the city, and you look at her and you make note of all the little things about her. How she wears such minimal makeup it looks natural (but you can tell; you always see the little things), how she twirls her hair when she's thinking, how her eyes are a bright green, a startling difference to your own blue. Her eyes are always a little sad, and he's afraid that she's already seen too much of the real world to ever be happy again.

You've told her that you're indecisive about what you want to do with your life. You love how her face lifts when you talk about your stories, about your worlds and characters. You _love_ that. It's okay that you don't know everything about her.

She's a mystery you'll never solve, and you're okay with that. You just hope she'll let you have time to try to solve some.

You blurt out what you were thinking, from the things about her eyes to how she reacts when you tell her stories and then it all comes rushing out, and you blurt out that you love her. She bites her lip, smiling softly and sweetly, and she responds in the same way she says your name, quietly but emphatically, "I love you too".

You think the world might have just stopped spinning. But no, she's reaching across to take your hand and she's smiling for real now, her eyes open and loving and suddenly you think, " _Is loving her all it takes to make her smile like that? Teeth and her tongue peeking out from between her teeth and god it's so beautiful. I'm going to do it for the rest of my life."_

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You realize that she was afraid of starting a relationship with someone who was going away to college. You tell her that you loved her from almost first sight, and her eyes are bright and shining with tears as you kneel down and ask her to marry you when you're eight years out of college. She's a detective, and you're a published author, and you still fight and she's still a mystery you won't ever solve, but it's just _perfect._

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She is five inches shorter than you and two years younger and one pair of hazel eyes and a beautiful brain smarter than you, and you cannot remember what it was like without her warmth pressed up against your side when it rains, and you cannot remember what you were like before you could hear her saying your name and telling you off and you know that you are the most luckiest person alive, and you pull her tighter into your side, pressing a kiss to her wet hair.

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 **Thanks for reading. :)**


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